MLJ: Maestro Monday: Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr., The Panther vs Puma, Tiger, Virus

Aired: 2015-03-07
Taped: 2015-03-03 @ Arena México
Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr., The Panther vs Puma, Tiger, Virus

I wanted to tackle something vaguely current this monday and I figured I could write about the parejas increibles tournament or I could write about this. I'm a lot more partial to the parejas increibles concept than a lot of people are, because I can forgive crummy matches if there's something I find fun about them, but that doesn't necessarily mean I want to WRITE about it, especially not when there's a super solid, very enjoyable trios match just sitting out there.

This was an older style of match, and I say that not with any real knowledge but just anecdotally. I've seen this style more in the 90s than I do now. It wasn't Exchanges - Rudo Swarming - Rudo Beatdown - Comeback - Reset - Exchanges - Dives - Finish, which is usually what I call A-B-A (though that's not a hugely accurate way to explain it), or the similar counterpart which skips the opening exchanges and starts with an ambush (which is my B-A-C, a little more accurate). The best way I'd explain this match would be a primera of feeling out, a segunda of cutting off, and a tercera of teased paying off shaped by the rudo leanings finally coming into play.

Let me break that down a bit. The primera had the opening exchanges and generally they went to their conclusions. I'll fully admit to getting Puma and Tiger confused sometimes (maybe for the whole match) but Blue Panther was paired with Tiger, Blue Panther, Jr. with Puma, and The Panther with Virus. Anytime Virus and Blue Panther are near each other, you want to see them go at it so that was a bit of initial frustration, but ultimately okay since all of these guys are very good. Of these, the pairing without a maestro involved was the weakest, but all three were good. It amazes me how Virus can move a body around the ring. Just little things like this:

Look at that. It's such a tiny thing, but you're watching and suddenly The Panther's on the mat, and you have no idea how it happened and then you see the positioning of the legs and it's like magic. So these went to their conclusion building from the initial BP/Tiger exchange which was very matbased to heavy rope running and The Panther hitting a tope on Virus. When he went for a second one though, he got caught by Tiger and Puma's double superkick and then their taunt. I have no desire to see a Young Bucks match ever, but were I to see one, I'd want it to be against Tiger and Puma:

Anyway, while they were gloating on the ramp, The Panther locked in a Fujiwara Armbar on Virus and the tecnicos took the primera.

The segunda revisited a lot of the previous match ups but with more intensity. Instead of simply moving on to the next after an advantage was taken, there were cut offs. For instance, Tiger was able to kick Blue Panther out, but The Panther flew in off the top to plancha him and he rana'd him out. Then Puma rushed in to knock him out of the ring, only for Panther, Jr. to come right in with an arm drag, and so on. The rudo advantage finally came when The Panther went for his roll through snap mare double jump second rope kick thing, but Virus, having been hit by it a few times in his life, dodged. Shortly thereafter Puma hit a great tope con hilo through the ropes and Tiger locked in a STF on Blue Panther.

The tercera was about teasing payoff and snatching it away. It began with Virus vs Blue Panther, which was certainly what I wanted. Almost immediately, though, Puma rushed in and interfered, kicking BP in the head. From there we get controlled chaos culmanating with Blue Panther Jr. locking in a submission he had failed to get to work earlier in the match and the Panther hitting a sort of sloppy Hijo del Santo style flipping roll up to take the match. I thought the tercera could have had a little more payoff as they teased Virus vs BP which got heat on the rudos, but they never really paid it off as much as they could have. Other than that this was really enjoyable.